


i could be the thing you reach for in the middle of the night

by illuminatedcities



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Blood and Gore, M/M, Violence, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-03
Updated: 2016-02-03
Packaged: 2018-05-18 01:33:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5892970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illuminatedcities/pseuds/illuminatedcities
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You stay here, don't <i>move</i>," John tells Harold urgently. </p><p>Harold huffs a laugh. "Oh no, I was planning to take on the undead all by myself, with my significant physical strength," he says. </p><p>Zombie Apocalypse AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i could be the thing you reach for in the middle of the night

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to Sky for beta <3 I suck at writing action sequences, you guys, you seriously have no idea. Sky, as usual, saved my butt on this one. Thanks, bb <333
> 
> Title is from“Last Person” by Jenny Owen Youngs.

"Finch, get _down!_ " John's voice breaks through the noise like the snap of a whip. Harold ducks down behind a car and then he loses his balance and his legs give out from under him, shaky and unsteady. He feels himself falling in slow motion. The next thing he knows is that he is on the ground, hands pressed against the asphalt, palms burning. He has hit his knee against a piece of debris, there's a dull pain in his leg. Harold manages to sit up with some difficulty. His arms are aching. He looks at his palms: the blood on them is not his own.

The blast of a shotgun explodes somewhere over his head. There is the dull sound of a body hitting the ground, crushing shards of glass from the broken windows beneath it. It makes his teeth ache. The ground is bloody, foul-smelling. There is a pile of random body parts to his left that he tries very hard not to inspect further.

Then John's hands are on him, pulling him up, half-carrying his weight when Harold's knees won't quite hold him up. “I can't,” Harold pants. His heart is trying to run ahead of him, pumping furiously; he can't breathe. “I'm slowing you down.”

“I'm not _leaving_ you,” John says, like the idea is revolting. He looks at Harold, at the shaky pile of bones he calls his body, unfit for a rapid getaway. Then, he drapes Harold's arm over his shoulder and bends down, easily sweeping Harold's legs out from under him. John supports Harold with one arm around his back and one under his legs, like a groom carrying his bride. Harold blushes with fierce humiliation, but he has to admit that being carried by John is preferable to meeting his death alone in the wreckage of a car.

The commotion has caught the interest of another group: about a dozen of them are moving in their direction, dragging their feet, a moaning noise streaming from their mouths like a battle cry. Shaw is clearing the way, taking off heads with an axe, kicking the decomposing bodies out of the way. They crumble with the cracking sound of brittle bones.

John stays behind her, significantly slower now that he's carrying Harold's weight as well as their bags.

"He okay?" Shaw calls over her shoulder. A woman in a dirty floral dress is limping towards her. There is a deep, gashing wound in her throat, the white cartilage of her windpipe visible. Shaw splits her skull in half, then pulls out the axe and keeps going.

John shouts an affirmative. Shaw abandons the axe in favor of a shotgun she finds next to a dead body, aiming it and taking out two of the creatures approaching them. When she tries to shoot the third one, a man with a missing arm who looks like he got mauled by a tiger, stripes of torn flesh hanging from his limbs, the trigger jams. Harold draws in a sharp breath. Shaw shrugs and kicks the zombie instead, stomping down on its head with her boot when it hits the ground.

There is no way to hide for them to hide between the abandoned cars, not when the street is crawling with zombies. The noise of the fighting is attracting more and more of those things, an endless supply of emaciated bodies and expressionless eyes. It seems impossible to call them people anymore, they have turned into a mindless, bloodthirsty herd that wanders the streets in search of prey. Shooting them in the head or cutting it off seems to stop them, but Harold would rather not stay and find out if it's permanent.

John looks grim and determined, scanning the street for signs of trouble. His arms are strong, even though the position puts strain on Harold's back, his neck. Harold grits his teeth. Even with John's considerable strength, he won't be able to carry Harold forever; there will come a moment when he has to choose between leaving Harold behind or getting killed. John's shirt is stained with blood and other things Harold tries hard not to think about. There's a blood spray pattern on his throat like a constellation of stars.

They duck behind the corner of an alley and John sets Harold down. Harold supports himself against the wall, managing to stand. John draws his gun and puts a clean shot through the head of a creature that is stumbling in their direction.

"It might be blood borne," Harold says. John doesn't turn to look at him. He aims his gun and takes out one of the creatures that have been advancing towards Shaw's back. She offs the other one and then turns to grin at him.

Shaw is covered in blood and gore, some of her hair has come loose from her ponytail. She is picking up her axe again. "Nice shot!" She calls. Bear is trailing behind her, ears flat on his head. " _Hier_ ," Shaw says, reaching down to put a calming hand against his neck. Bear could probably take out some of the creatures, but biting their flesh might cause an infection: they can't risk it.

"We need to move, Reese! They'll circle us if we stand still for too long. We need to find a place to stay," Shaw shouts.

“Can you walk?” John asks, turning to Harold.

There is a streak of blood on John's cheek. Harold has the sudden, irrational urge to wipe it away with his thumb. “I think I can manage,” he says. “And if you keep carrying me around, they get an even better chance to kill all of us.”

John places a hand on Harold's shoulder, his grip surprisingly strong, _possessive._ “If you can't go on, I'll carryyou. You're not staying behind, do you understand me?”

“Yes,” Harold says. He covers John's hand with his own. “I understand.”

“Reese, fucking _move_!” Shaw yells, over the sound of gunfire.

\--

Harold limps over the debris and dead bodies by himself, trying to keep up with John and Shaw. They make their way down the street paved with burning, eviscerated car wrecks. John grabs the creatures that stray into their path and fights them off with his bare hands.

"I'll be out of ammo soon," he says, "and we can't fight them off forever. We need to rest." He produces a knife from god knows where and jams the blade into a creature's eye socket. It falls back with a _thud._

Harold had heard the news, the media coverage on the infection, the slow spread of the catastrophe. He had assumed that the library would be safe, that the stairs would keep the creatures away for long enough to make a plan, prepare their escape. When John and Shaw came to get him, the foyer was already crawling with them, decaying hands reaching for Harold when he limped down the stairs, clutching his laptop bag to his chest like a small child. They had gotten out into the street and seen the destruction, the busy New York traffic collapsed, broken glass littering the sidewalks.

"Reese." Shaw is nodding at a building about half a mile in front of them. A group of creatures stand between them and the heavy iron doors. They are clawing at the door, trying to push their way in. The colorful glass-stained windows seem intact, too high for them to reach. It's a church.

"Yeah, I see it," John says. Harold wonders if there are survivors holed up in the building, if they have barricaded the door.

"We will need supplies," Harold says, breathing heavily from the exertion of keeping up. "If we lock ourselves in that building, we will starve sooner or later, we will need water and medicine --"

"We need to not _die_ in the next ten minutes, Harold," Shaw says. She slams an open car door against one of the creatures and sends it tumbling to the ground. "We can go grocery shopping later, when we have a safe base of operations."

When they approach the church, the group of creatures turns and slowly starts advancing towards them, shuffling their feet.

"You stay here, don't _move_ ," John tells Harold urgently.

Harold huffs a laugh. "Oh no, I was planning to take on the undead all by myself, with my significant physical strength," he says.

John shoots him a look, then he picks up a bloody baseball bat that has been lying on the ground – someone's futile attempt to defend themselves, probably – and smashes one of the creature's heads in.

\--

Getting rid of the group of creatures in front of the church is buying them some time, but the main door is heavy and locked from the inside. They walk around the perimeter. The church windows are too high to climb, but behind the building is a smaller one, probably the priest's living quarters. The windows here are closer to the ground. There are deep, red lines etched into the wood. It takes Harold a moment to understand what they are. Then he sees a fingernail stuck in one of them and takes a step back, his skin crawling with something cold and ugly. The creatures have been trying to claw their way in.

Shaw pries away the wood board, opens a window and climbs inside while John and Harold keep watch outside. The other windows are nailed shut, too: apparently whoever tried to secure this place had warning in advance, and managed to prepare themselves. Harold wonders if it had helped them survive.

"The place is clear," Shaw calls through the window. "I'll open the front door for you, be careful not to let any of _them_ in."

"Good advice, never would have thought of that," John says flatly.

She flips him off. "Bite me, Reese," she says, but it's affectionate.

They walk around to the entrance of the church. John takes care of three more creatures stumbling their way, then the big doors open and they squeeze inside. The church is dark, all the electrical lights turned off. Oddly enough, there are candles burning near the altar. Their flickering light makes the big wooden crucifix look solemn and disquieting.

John takes one look at the flames and reaches for his gun. "Someone was here recently," he says.

"Yeah, and I can tell you who it was," Shaw says. She is nudging a body on the floor with her boot.

Harold and John both take a step back. John is aiming his weapon.

"Relax, he isn't infected," Shaw says. It's a man with short, grey hair, clad in black except for a flash of white on his collar. The priest. "I checked him for bite marks, but it seems that none of those creatures made it in here. Must have died of natural causes, I'd say a heart attack. He isn't thin enough to have starved, and there are no signs of a struggle. Maybe the stress proved a bit much for him."

John relaxes fractionally next to Harold. He puts his gun away. "Did you find anything else? Any survivors?"

Shaw shakes her head. "Looks like he was alone. There is an office in the back, a bathroom and a bedroom where he lived. Seems like he stocked up on some groceries before the worst happened, there is canned food in the pantry. Also he did good work on the windows, I'll go through them all again and see if anything needs to be replaced just to be sure, but for tonight we should be good at least."

Harold is looking at the body on the floor. "We can't just leave him here," he says distantly. He might be in shock, he's not sure. His brain seems to work fine, but Bear keeps nosing at his hand, keeping close to him. Maybe he's more upset than he realizes.

"Other entries?" John asks. It seems like he hasn't heard Harold, or maybe decided that they have more pressing matters to attend. Harold suddenly wonders if the dufflebag John carries around is full of weapons. _What else do you bring to an apocalypse?_ He thinks, a little hysterical.

When Shaw and John came to get him, Harold had packed his laptop and charger and grabbed a few items from his desk drawer: sentimental, personal items like photographs, things he certainly has no use for while being on the run. By now Harold regrets not having had the presence of mind to pack something _useful_ : the first aid kit, some bottled water. At least he had remembered to shove a bottle of pain pills into the bag before John guided him outside, moving around him as protectively as a bodyguard. In retrospect, Harold is not sure why he took the laptop: even if the electricity is currently running, there is no guarantee that there will be wifi reception, that the internet hasn't crashed.

"There is a back door, nailed shut and barricaded with some furniture. Other than that, there's only the front door, which should be heavy enough that these things can't get it open." She grins at John. "I'm calling dibs on the shower, by the way. I don't know if the water heats up, but it seems to run just fine."

"It's really only a matter of time until civilization declines to the point of complete chaos," Harold says. "Electricity, water, heat, food distribution. These things require maintenance, and soon there will be no one to take care of them, and it will be the middle ages again, infrastructurally speaking.”

Shaw sighs. "Aren't you a ray of sunshine today," she sighs.

\--

Harold would feel better if they would get rid of the dead priest's body, but John insists that opening the door without knowing what is on the other side is too dangerous. There might be a whole group of creatures waiting for them, attracted by their recent activities, just waiting to push inside. Instead, they cover the body up with a blanket. John promises to take care of the matter the next morning, when they have to go exploring anyway.

Harold sees John hesitating at the stone basin next to the door when he passes it: after a moment of consideration, he dips his fingers into the holy water, moves his hand to his forehead, the middle of his chest, his left and right shoulder. Harold looks down at where he is sorting through the food they found. He doesn't say a word.

After making sure that the windows and doors are safe, they sit down and eat crackers and cold beans out of the can. Outside, Harold can hear the bodies shuffling and moaning, occasionally scratching at the walls. Shaw has showered, her wet hair smoothed back from her face. She produces a bottle and holds out the label for them to see. It's Sacramental wine.

She grins, takes a swig from the bottle and holds it out to John. He shakes his head. “Thanks, I'll stick to water.”

She frowns at him. “You know that Sacramental wine is just regular wine, right? Probably cheap, but still alcohol.”

Harold reaches for the bottle and drinks. His body is thrumming with pain, from the exertion and the crouching and fighting off horrible creatures that don't resemble humans anymore. He could take a pill, but he needs to make sure they'll last him for a while. It's not like he can just go to the emergency room to get a refill.

“We should sleep in shifts,” John says. “One guard at the front entrance, one watching the back door.”

Harold hands the bottle to Shaw. She gives him an amused look. “The bedroom is right next to the door, and there is so much furniture stacked in front of it, you'd definitely hear any intruder before they even made it into the hallway. I'm more worried about the iron doors.”

As if to illustrate her point, there is the dull sound of bodies pushing and hammering against the door. Shaw fishes some beef jerky out of a plastic bag and feeds it to Bear, scratching his ears.

“If there is a whole bunch of them, they might be able to push it open by sheer force of numbers.” She says. “I'll take the first shift, Reese can take over in a few hours.”

Harold shudders. “Maybe we should all stay awake,” he says.

John gives him a look like he only just realized that Harold is there. Harold doesn't blame him: Shaw and John have gone into survival mode instantly, and Harold has to admit that he would probably be dead already if it weren't for their protection. No, scratch that: he would _most definitely_ be dead by now.

John gives him a very serious look. “We need to keep our strength up, Harold. That means sleeping when we can, taking care of our injuries, and eating and drinking on the regular. It won't help you survive if you collapse from exhaustion.”

“Fine,” Harold mutters, awkwardly getting to his feet, his legs and back stiff and sore with tension. He feels weak, and useless, and like a burden. He limps towards the bathroom to go and clean himself up.

–

Apart from the bathroom and a small kitchen with a stove and a few cupboards, there is only one other room. It's just big enough to hold a narrow bed and a nightstand, the walls white and bare. Harold doesn't have a change of clothes so he soaks his suit in the sink and puts it out to dry, showers quickly and uses the razor and shaving cream he finds under the sink. It's odd to see all of these personal items, to move around in somebody else's house. _He's dead_ , Harold reminds himself. _It's not like he would mind._ His dress shirt seems clean enough, so he puts it on along with his boxers and socks. He sits down on the bed. A bible sits on top of the nightstand. Harold takes it and puts it into the drawer.

John knocks on the open door. There is a towel hanging loosely around his neck, and his hair is dripping water. Bear trots in and curls up in front of the bed, and Harold pats him absently.

John holds out a bottle of water. “Do you need your meds? I think I saw you put them into your bag.”

Harold takes the bottle from him. “It's not that bad,” he lies. If they keep up the pace they've been going today, Harold will soon need them just to stay barely functional. He unscrews the cap of the bottle. He _is_ thirsty. “Shouldn't we ration the water? Make sure it will last us a while?”

John looks like he tries to smile, but only manages to twitch with the corner of his mouth. “You need to stay hydrated, Harold. We can go out and find more supplies tomorrow.”

Harold puts the bottle to his lips and drinks. He feels weirdly self-conscious, sitting in front of John in his underwear. Then again, it's not the strangest thing that has happened today.

“You should try to get some sleep. I'll sit down on a chair in the hallway, keep watch,” John says.

Harold has a sudden, irrational fear of staying alone in the room. “You could keep watch here,” he says.

John tilts his head a little, then he slowly walks into the room and sits down next to Harold on the bed.

Harold puts the bottle away and clears his throat. “Surely it won't matter if you sit in the hallway or in here. We can keep the door open, and Miss Shaw already pointed out that the noise would be enough to startle both of us awake.” He doesn't know why he is so desperate to keep John close, only that the idea of curling up alone in a dead man's bed with the sound of those creatures outside is more than he can take.

John turns his head and looks into the hallway. The priest has managed to push a heavy wooden closet in front of the door and secure _that_ with a dark green couch that is jammed into the narrow corridor. Behind the closet, the door seems to be nailed shut. Harold wonders how the priest was planning to survive. Even if he rationed his supplies carefully, there would have been a time when he would have run out of food, or fresh water. Did he not think that far ahead, blindly barricading himself in the church, hoping to keep the creatures out? Did he think that help would come in time?

John turns his head again, giving Harold a thoughtful look. Then he suddenly reaches for Harold's arm, turning it into the light. “Did you – did one of them --”

There's fresh blood trickling down Harold's arm. Harold blinks in confusion. “Oh, I think I hurt myself on some of the broken glass in a car window when we were escaping,” he says. “I must have reopened the wound under the shower, I didn't notice.”

Relief washes over John's face. He nods jerkily. It's the closest to panic Harold has seen him all day. John leans closer and inspects the wound. The edges are clean, clearly a cut and not a bite mark.

John exhales slowly. “I'll get some first aid supplies,” he says roughly, and then disappears down the corridor.

Harold sits in the silence of the room for a moment. The wooden cross on the wall reminds him of the dead body still lying in the church. The candles were still burning when they came in: had the priest only been dead for a few hours?

John comes back with alcohol swabs and a band-aid. He cleans out the wound, wincing when Harold flinches at the sting. “Sorry,” John says. He finishes patching Harold up, his hands warm and steady.

“I didn't know that you are religious,” Harold says.

John keeps his eyes on the wound. “What makes you think that I am?”

“It was odd for you to enter a church without dipping your fingers in holy water,” Harold says. “You were too preoccupied to notice, at first. Understandably, as you were making sure that we all survive. Later, when you realized, you made up for it.”

John helps Harold to put his shirt back on, then he sits down beside him on the bed. They both stare at the wooden cross. “My mother went to church every Sunday,” John says. “She wore a golden cross around her neck, and she made me learn the words to all the prayers, both Latin and English.”

“The Sacramental wine,” Harold says.

John presses his lips together. “Shaw is right, it's just regular wine. And this is a regular building, and the dead man... he isn't any closer to god than anyone else is, probably.”

“He arguably went more peacefully than many: in relative safety, and with the mercy of dying a natural death. Not the worst fate you could wish for these days,” Harold muses.

John raises an eyebrow at him. “You're saying that god gave him the gift of heart failure instead of being torn to pieces by those creatures?”

Harold huffs. “I'm not saying that there is an omniscient being guiding our every step. Mostly because there _isn't,_ ” Harold says, emphatically. John laughs, a benevolent sparkle in his eyes. He doesn't seem offended. “But if there _was_ a god, I believe one would struggle to reconcile any of these events with his divine influence.”

John seems to consider that. “After we lost my dad, my mother stopped going to church for a while,” he says. Something complicated happens on his face: there's sadness, grief, but also something else, an emotion that Harold can't read. “I asked her why she did that once, and she only smiled and said 'I'm done being angry at god. Even if I don't understand everything, I have to trust that he is good and kind. That there is a reason that things happen, whatever that may be. Even terrible things. That's what faith is, I think.' She seemed content with that explanation.”

“And you?” Harold asks.

There is more gray in the hair at John's temple than when they met, Harold is sure of it. He wants to reach out and touch John's hair, find the beating pulse under the skin of John's throat and press his fingers against it. He cannot believe that they're _alive._

John shrugs. “I don't think I ever stopped being angry at god. I never set foot into a church again. I mean, until today,” he adds, with a regretful little twist of his mouth. “After the things I've done, I'm surprised _I_ didn't suffer a heart attack. Or get struck by lightning.”

“As far as I know, in Catholicism, sins can be forgiven,” Harold says.

“Not everyone deserves to be forgiven, Harold. Not everyone should be. And I'm not sure that it matters anymore,” John says. “Not now. We need to make sure that we get out of this mess alive. Do whatever it takes to survive. I don't think absolution is high on our list of priorities.”

There is a noise outside, and they both turn and listen. John reaches over to dim the light, like he's worried that it might be visible outside despite the shuttered windows. Shaw has turned on the generator, but Harold knows that electricity isn't a luxury they will have for too long.

John has been leaning over him to reach the lamp, and now he's covering Harold's body with his own, leaning on the mattress with one arm, listening intently. There is no other sound for a long time, probably the creature outside has wandered off.

John must be able to feel Harold's racing heartbeat, feel his rapid breathing on his skin.

“Okay, I think we're good,” John says softly, moving back.

Harold grabs him by the arm and pulls him close so he can fit their mouths together. John tenses, surprised, but once he realizes what Harold is doing, he melts against him, his mouth going pliant and soft under Harold's lips. John puts his arms around Harold and lets himself be kissed. Harold runs his hands over John's chest, cradles his face, tries to touch as much skin as he can manage.

When they come up for air, John looks different: flushed and a little confused, his hair mussed up where Harold petted it. It's a good look on him, _human_ , not like the mask he's wearing when he's out there, shooting creatures in the head with a steady hand.

“What do you need?” John asks, his voice throaty and low, and Harold wants to say: _You. Everything. Anything._

John's gaze flicks to the door as if he feels guilty for not sitting in front of the pile of furniture, as if, even now, he doesn't think that he deserves a moment to himself, a moment to recover from the horrors that the day threw at them.

“Hey,” Harold says. He places one hand under John's chin and makes him meet his eyes. “We're as safe as we can be right now.”

John nods. He takes Harold's hand in his own and moves it up to his mouth, kissing his fingers one by one. It reminds Harold of prayer, the beads of a rosary.

“I couldn't forgive myself if I let something happen to you,” John says.

 _You can't forgive yourself for anything,_ Harold thinks, but he smiles, careful, reassuring.

“I can tell Miss Shaw to sit watch outside if that makes you feel better,” Harold says and John _laughs_ , the skin around his eyes crinkling. He leans forward to kiss Harold some more, and that is good: warm and real. It's comforting for another few minutes, until Harold is hard enough that he might embarrass himself any time soon.

“Tell me what you need,” John says against his lips, his fingers stroking the scar tissue on Harold's neck, the skin behind his ears.

Harold wants to have this, feel this way all the time. He wants to be curled up with a book on the couch, his head resting in John's lap. He wants John's patient, capable hands stroking his neck, combing through his hair. He wants to wake up in John's arms, hold him close, move with him in the warmth underneath the covers, gasp his name. And that is when Harold remembers that there is no peace for them anymore, that whatever fragile world they had built for themselves, it had all come tumbling down.

Harold tries to find the words, form sentences, but he is _shaking_ , tearing at the seams: feeling the fear and the adrenaline and the horror, all the things that he hasn't allowed himself to think about. He is sitting on a dead man's _bed_ , and outside the world is going up in flames, and he can't _breathe._

“Shh,” John says, pulling him close, and Harold makes a single, terrified sob and clutches at his shoulders.

John's hands on him are helping. He touches Harold carefully, like he's trying to soothe a startled animal. Harold tries to focus on his breathing, the warmth and smell and closeness of John. He can feel his heart rate slowing down, his breathing return to normal. Once he has calmed down a little, his arousal hits him like a kick to the gut. Harold buries his face in John's collar, and then pushes himself closer, rubs himself against John's leg. John draws in a sharp breath when Harold ruts against him shamelessly, way beyond dignity, sighing against the side of his throat.

“Yeah, okay, _okay_ , let me just,” John says, his voice endlessly gentle. He loosens Harold's tight grip around him and makes him lie down on his back, careful to find a position that isn't too painful.

“John,” Harold says, “ _John, John, John_ ,” the name on his lips like he has forgotten what other words are, why they might matter.

“Shh, it's alright, I'll take care of you,” John tells him, pulling Harold's boxers down. He leans in to kiss Harold's cheek, the line of his jaw. Then he closes a hand around Harold's cock and starts jerking him in a slow rhythm, pressing sloppy, open-mouthed kisses against Harold's jaw. Harold nearly arches off the bed, greedy for more, the feeling of John's calloused palm around his cock almost but not quite enough.

Then John leans down and takes him into his mouth, and Harold shudders helplessly beneath him, too out of it to even give John a warning before he comes with a groan. John doesn't seem to mind. He swallows without blinking and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand after he pulls off. Harold shivers all over. He pulls John down to him, and John lazily slides against him, his cock hard against Harold's thigh.

“What do you like?” Harold asks. “What do you _want_?”

John's eyelids flutter. He kisses Harold's collarbones where they are exposed by the open shirt. He is rubbing himself against Harold's leg, makes soft little noises against his throat. “This is good,” John says, pushing up against Harold's thigh. “Touch me.”

Harold puts one hand against his neck, pulling him down and _close close close_ and squeezes the other one into the space between their bodies. They kiss and kiss, John moving restlessly against him, and then Harold gets a hand into his pants and John whines,a sweet sound low in his throat. He pushes into Harold's fist, hips stuttering.

“I know you're good, I know that you deserve to be forgiven,” Harold says, before he can stop himself, and that seems to knock the breath clean out of John. His hands clench on Harold's arms, desperate.

“Harold,” John says, sounding wrecked. He is still pushing into Harold's hand, his cock hot and slick with precome, his eyelids heavy-lidded with pleasure.

“Even if I don't know everything,” Harold says, and now he knows that he's babbling, the words running out of him like blood welling up from a wound. “Even if I don't _understand_ everything. I have faith, John. I have faith and that matters, even if I don't believe in god, even if I don't believe in _anything,_ but I believe in you.”

John shudders. There are tears spilling from his eyes. Harold smoothes them away with his hand. “I'm here, I'm fine, I'm safe, you made sure that I was safe,” Harold says, because even if they don't make it, even if they die tomorrow, this is still _true_. “You saved me,” Harold says.

John sobs and sinks against him, his eyes squeezed shut. He comes over Harold's hand, slick and wet and perfect. Harold strokes him through the aftershocks until all the tension has drained out of his body. Harold pulls up the sheet to cover them, trying to move as little as possible.

John is rolling onto his side, taking his weight off him while still lying with his whole body pressed against Harold. He sleepily kisses Harold's shoulder. “Need to stay awake,” John says. “Door.”

“I'll keep watch,” Harold says. There has not been as much as a single noise the whole time, and John hasn't been this relaxed in as long as Harold can remember. “It will be fine.”

Harold watches the silhouettes of the furniture. They look like weird cubist art in the half-darkness. His eyelids are scratchy with exhaustion. John is sleeping next to him, and Harold pets his hair, strokes along his spine. He only closes his eyes for a second, just to allow his eyes some rest. Just for a moment.

–

“At this rate, zombies are going to eat you soon.” Shaw puts down two mugs with what is probably instant coffee. “Shouldn't have let the two of you camp out in here all by yourselves, I should have known that you'd get distracted.”

John is awake instantly, bolting upright in bed and looking around with a crazy-eyed expression. Harold is more sluggish, blinking blearily at Shaw's cheerful face.

“I couldn't sleep anyway, and I'm glad that you guys had fun,” she says. Then she _winks_ at Harold. Harold slides further down the bed and pulls up the blanket all the way to his chin.

John, after having assessed the situation, just shrugs and reaches for the coffee. “Thanks, Shaw,” he says. He takes a sip. “Awful,” he says, and then takes a few more gulps.

“Go fuck yourself,” Shaw says, throwing some clothes at him. “Or him, or whatever.”

Harold will need more than a cup of instant coffee to deal with this. If he is not mistaken, John is grinning into his mug.

“Come on, we gotta take a tour to get some supplies. I'm starving, and this guy didn't exactly stock up on breakfast food,” Shaw says, already half out the door.

“Sorry, no breakfast in bed today,” John says. He leans down to kiss Harold. Harold can taste the coffee on him, watery, a little burned. On John's lips, the taste is delicious.

“Be careful,” Harold says.

John smiles and then hurries to get into his clothes, following after Shaw.

–

While John and Shaw are outside, looking for supplies and weapons, Harold inspects the church for anything that might come in handy. Harold takes a lighter from the little table with candles by the altar, and a can opener from the kitchen. He stashes the rest of the canned food and non-stale groceries in a bag that they can take with them should they need to leave quickly, then he opens all the cabinet doors and looks through the drawers. As he expected, there isn't much that would help them survive a zombie apocalypse, so he just sits down on the bed after a while and turns on the laptop, looking for a signal.

The sound against the window nearly makes him drop the computer on his lap. Bear comes running and barks aggressively, picking up on Harold's terror. It's fine, he tells himself, the windows and doors are nailed shut and secure, there is no way for one of them to get in. Of course, now that he has entertained the idea, it is all too easy to see it, and his mind is reeling with the possibilities. _What if one of the wooden boards has come unstuck, what if there is a large group pushing the door open?_ It might be hours until John and Shaw are back. Harold can see it clearly in his mind, the gruesome creatures crouching over him, hands buried deep in his guts, eating his liver: Prometheus, chained to a rock in eternal punishment.

There is a loud noise again, somebody banging against the barricaded window. “Harold? Reese? I know you're in there, there's no use in hiding.”

Harold never would have thought that one day he would be relieved to hear Miss Groves' voice.

–

He lets her wait outside until Shaw and John are back, carrying bags and guns and ammo. Shaw has traded her old axe for a brand new one, shiny and fire engine red. She closes the door behind them.

“Did you miss me?” Root says, running her hand through her hair and grinning at Shaw.

“I thought you were dead,” Shaw says flatly. “Figured zombies ate you.”

“I'm not _dead_ ,” Root says, like the idea alone is silly.

“Whatever,” Shaw says, annoyed, and takes off with the food.

John sets down his bags and then walks over to Harold.

“John, I am so very glad --” Harold starts, except then John takes his face in his hands and kisses him soundly on the mouth. Oh.

Root rolls her eyes behind John's back. John lets Harold go and grins smugly before gathering the last remaining bags and following after Shaw. Harold resists the temptation to touch a hand to his lips.

“I thought you had better taste than that,” Root mutters.

“How did you find us?” Harold asks. Then it occurs to him. “You put a tracking device on my laptop.”

Root shrugs. “I had a feeling that you wouldn't run off without it.”

She is wearing black jeans and boots, her leather jacket is torn and bloodstained. There are cuts on her face, the hair on her right temple is dark and crusted with blood. She is carrying two different guns and a knife in her belt. “I have something for you,” Root says. “With all this end of days nonsense, we need a secure base of operations. The Machine has some ideas.”

She hands him a book. Harold pages through it, frowning. There is a post-it on one of the pages. Behind him, he can hear John and Shaw approaching.

“So, what do we do next?” Shaw asks, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

Harold inspects the image on the page. “Subway tunnels,” he says, slowly. He looks up at Root. “Do we know that the creatures don't inhabit those, as well?”

“The Machine has found an abandoned subway station. There is only one entrance and that is well-hidden and locked, so unless we're dealing with exceptionally intelligent zombies, I doubt they found their way in. If we make it there, we could have an excellent hiding spot.”

“A safe haven,” John says.

Shaw nods at the book. “How far is it? From where we are?”

Root grins. “Aw, come on, you like a challenge, admit it.”

Harold looks at John, whose smile is boyish, hopeful. “Sounds dangerous,” he says, delighted.

“Have some faith, Mr. Reese,” Harold says. On a whim, he lit the candles near the altar this morning: not a single one has been blown out.

– fin

 


End file.
